Mass Effect: The Smuggler
by Freddy Mercury's Moustache
Summary: The story of The Reaper War, from Eden Prime, to London, through the eyes of a smuggler, as if they were there.


**A/N. So, this is a bit different from my other works, but I love Mass Effect, and really wanted to sort of novelise it, but with a kind of twist. This story will be rated M for explicit language, violence, and themes, but I'll make sure to put a warning in before the** _ **really**_ **hardcore stuff.**

 **This one may have some really bad violence stuffs, so be careful of that.**

 **Disclaimer: Mass Effect, and all of it's characters, belong to Bioware.**

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 **Enter, the Smuggler**

My mother once told me to never trust a Krogan... or a Turian... or Batarians, Salarians, Vorcha, even other Asari for that matter, her great lesson of distrust had even been extended to include humans at one point, up until she shortened the lesson to just, "people are bad, don't trust them". I was told that by my ever so pleasant mother when I was just forty years old, and the lesson stuck with me until at least a hundred years later.

Unfortunately, I don't like to take my mother seriously at times, and often like to make decisions based on what would spite her the most, and on one such occasion, I ended up almost dying, with a shotgun planted to the back of my head.

It began when I had been hired by a group of Salarians hoping to sell a collection of Prothean artefacts to an interested party on the Hanar home-world, a collection they didn't yet own, and one that was annoyingly located within an Alliance-owned mine right on the fringes of Alliance-owned space, and the Traverse.

Knowing I was, in all likelihood, going to be facing down a lot of _very_ hostile humans, I decided to reach out to the one merc group I knew would jump at the chance to kill some, and for a low cost.

The Blood Pack.

Finding them was easy, as the nearest group could be found working out of a hijacked Turian frigate just inside of the Traverse, mocking the Human Alliance by being so close, yet outside of their jurisdiction. The hard part was convincing the only intelligent Krogan in the system to take on this contract.

On any normal occasion, a pack of bloodthirsty Krogan and Vorcha would jump a contract for about ten per cent of the reward money, and the rights to kill as many people as they wanted, however they wanted. It was why I hired them so often, but this wasn't a normal occasion. Attacking an Alliance mine _inside_ their own space, was just asking for a violent reaction.

Naturally, the Krogan thought so too. "Half," he grunted as soon as I relayed to him the instructions.

"What? Fuck that, you _never_ go higher than fifteen!" I glared into his eyes... eye, they're so spaced apart on a Krogan.

"We also never attack Humans in their own space, half," he retorted, and fuck, it was a good retort.

"Then I'll settle at twenty, do you have _any_ idea what Hanar pay for Prothean shit?"

"I know it's a lot, so half, 40 at least."

"30, and you can do whatever with the humans there."

"35, and the same stipulation, or you can kiss your Hanar deal goodbye." This is what I get for agreeing to work such a high paying job. No good things come without cost, which was ironically another lesson taught by mother-dearest.

Allowing the Krogan's deal to roll around my head for a moment, I considered the alternatives.

There weren't many. So I put my hand out, and he gripped onto it tight, giving a short jerk as a handshake. "Deal," I growled, and stormed out of the room.

As I moved through the ship, I could vaguely hear, or at least remember, orders being tossed around for a number of Vorcha and Krogan, one of the latter being called by name, Wroyas or something, to meet the 'client' in the shuttle bay.

I made it to the spacious area filled with three shuttles with no issues, surprisingly for the company around me, and found myself face to face with about six Vorcha, and three Krogan, one of which stood out in his large silver armour. Behind the group were two open shuttles, two of their own, and same one that I had taken to arrive on the ship earlier.

"You the one who hired us?" The Krogan in silver asked.

As the only Asari on the entire ship, his question was irritatingly redundant. "No, the Blood Pack are just accepting my species into their ranks now." I barged past him, and jumped up into my shuttle, then turned to face the collected group.

"You three, come with me-" I pointed to the Krogan trio, "-the rest of you can go separate." Leaving no room for debate, I retreated further into the shuttle, and felt it rock as the massive frames of three Krogan followed me.

The door closed behind them, and the shuttle took off the ground, as I sat down opposite one in silver, while the other two took up seats in the cockpit.

"So, you Wroyas?" I asked him.

"Who's asking?" He grunted.

"My name isn't important, yet, but what do you know about this job?"

"Not much, apparently it's high paying."

"Well you're taking 35 percent, so it'd better be. A group of Salarians have set up a deal with a Hanar buyer for some Prothean artefacts, only, they don't have the artefacts. They're in a mine on Therum, which is under the protection of the Human Alliance, and _we_ have to retrieve them."

He stared at me "and you're plan is to just kill anyone in your way?"

"And walk out with the artefacts, yes. Is that an issue?" I taunted.

In response, he pulled his shotgun off his lower back, and cocked it, "just tell me where to aim."

A smirk broke across my face. "I heard you get called in by name on the ship. You must be important."

"The rest of the Pack trusts me to keep _your_ ass alive, apparently."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't need someone to keep me alive. In reality, _you_ need _me_ to leave my enemies dead."

In a few short hours, the Shuttles began to descend upon the red and brown surface of Therum. Huge metal pipes and buildings broke apart the the landscape, and lakes of lava burst all over it's surface.

As the shuttles slowly moved to land, I took a peek out of the small, artificial windows down at the ground below. A small alcove surrounded on all sides by lava or steep rocky walls was dominated by a tall metal and concrete scaffolding, and a circular entry to a particularly large rocky surface lay open, no doubt leading to the mine inside.

The two shuttles landed on the ground just outside the mine entrance, and my group piled out, stretching their joints, or surveying the ground around.

I stepped over to Wroyas who had moved away from the general group.

"It's deserted," he grunted.

"That it is, which'll make this job easier."

"Or not. Why would the Alliance abandon this place? Seems wrong." Maybe Wroyas was smarter than I had given his people credit for.

"Well, we aren't going find out standing around out here," I remarked. "Okay, we're going in. If something moves, you shoot it, if it's still moving, shoot it some more, just don't hit anything that looks Prothean, understand?" I called out to the group, each of them grunting.

Nodding, I turned back towards the mine entrance, and started walking up the ramp, when a huge purple ship flew overhead, snapping my attention to it.

It was unlike anything I'd seen before, and as it flew over us, huge... Things dropped from it, and landed on the ground with a burst of dirt from the impact.

The things then stood up, and it became clear they were machines, of some kind, and not friendly ones judging by the rifles they pulled off their backs.

"Move!" I demanded, sprinting for the mine. Behind me, heavy footfalls on the metal ramp followed, and gunfire erupted. I reached the open mine entryway in what felt like record time, stopping just inside as two Krogan, and five Vorcha followed.

The last thing I saw as Wroyas forced the door shut was the bodies of my fallen merc's being incinerated, and erased from existence.

"Think this'll hold?" I asked.

"It better," Wrotas grunted.

"What the fuck _were_ those!?" I demanded nobody in particular.

"What, you never seen a Geth before?" The Krogan seemed to mock.

"No, because I've never entered the fucking Veil before!"

"Well, now you _have_ seen a Geth," he said, stalking further down the mine. The rest followed, and I had to rush to take up the lead again, so it wasn't long until we found ourselves in an area where the mine seemed to move more vertical than it did horizontal, with a wall of strange rooms lining one side, an unsafe looking elevator beside it, and a fairly defensible place to hold out.

"Alright then, You three stay here-" I pointed to three Vorcha, "-and watch the entrance, while we-" I gestured to my two remaining Krogan, and the lat Vorcha, "-go deeper and find our relics. We're still on a job, remember that, so no fucking this up, hear me?"

I turned on my heel, and moved over to the elevator, followed closely by my three companions, and hit the button to head down. It wasn't long until our descent was stopped at a length of scaffolding that led to a second elevator, which my team entered without question.

This time however, we were cut short by some mangled platforming, that would definitely serve to hinder our progress back up, but I wanted my pay, so I forced us to keep moving anyway.

Dropping off the torn up metal, a voice that sounded somewhat muffled call for help. Just to our right, behind some kind of energy wall, another Asari was held suspended above the ground, held in a containment-shield-bubble type thing.

"Hello? Can you please help!" She begged.

The profiteer side of me immediately saw the opportunity to make a few credits, but this was to precious to let alone, so I decided to have some fun first.

"Well, what's this then?" I smirked, leaning some railing behind me, "we find a young maiden, trapped and at the mercy of bloodthirsty pirates." I wasn't sure if anybody other than myself knew what any of that meant, but since the introduction of Humanity into the galactic community, I had become fascinated by their stories of pirates, and thieves. It was really the only thing they actually contributed to the galaxy.

"W-what? Please, I just need some help!"

"And _why_ should I help you?" I pushed.

"If you want a reward, I can give you money!" She began to sound desperate.

"Not good enough Bubbles-" she narrowed her eyes, and cocked a section of her head marked with a line that resembled a human's eyebrow at the nickname, "-I'm looking for some specific items, Prothean make, they in here?" I asked.

"Well, yes, but I'm not sure-"

"Where," I interrupted.

"Wait! I'm not sure what condition they could be in," she explained.

"Why not?"

"Because when the Geth attacked-"

"Wait, Geth?" I interrupted again. "There're _Geth_ in here?!" As if to confirm, a shot whizzed past my head, and harmlessly smacked into the energy wall before me, prompting my tram to duck behind any nearby cover as a hail of fire erupted.

I ignored the desperate and fearful cries of Bubbles, and led my group back up to the elevators, not stopping my blind fire to the cave below, or to check on my group, until we entered the safety of the first elevator, and screeched into movement.

I took a deep breath, and then noticed a missing body.

"Where's Wroyas?" I asked.

The other two shrugged, and I swore, "fucking Geth? Seriously?" Once we reached the first stop, and got onto the second elevator, I noticed more gunfire, only it wasn't from below, but above.

I swore again, and willed the elevator to ascend quicker. When it finally stopped, I burst out of the shaft to find Geth firing down on the remaining Vorcha. Fortunately, none had been hit, but that didn't matter. I practically tore off my assault rifle, and tossed a biotic grenade, which exploded into a blue surge of power, throwing the Geth off the edge, and to their doom, or my line of fire.

With the synthetic threat taken care of, I turned around on mu team, who were staring at me in shock. But all I saw was red. I was pissed at the failed mission, the almost definite loss on my payday, and that I was probably going to die here.

So I did the only thing that made sense, and tackled a vorcha to the ground, smashing the butt of my assault rifle into his face until a sickening crunch had me stopping, and moving on the next unlucky Vorcha.

This one I grabbed by the arm, and whipped him to one side, using my biotics as propulsion, while wrapping his arm around his head. The force of the push, and the way I jerked on his arm, had the limb tearing off, and garrotting him in one movement.

Next was the third Vorcha, the one I had taken further down the mine with me. I grabbed him by the head, and slammed it into a the rocks, and again, over and over, until another crunch got me to let his limp body fall.

It should be noted that I was surprised at the fact that neither the Krogan, nor the other Borcha tried to stop me, but it wasn't surprising enough to stop my assault.

As I rounded on the last Vorcha, his friends all torn apart, and dead, I felt a solid metal thing jab into my back, the cold cutting through my jacket and armour.

"I think it's time we came up with a new plan" the deep Krogan voice behind me grunted.

That motherfucker.

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 **A/N So, if you're familiar with the characters, and don't like how I written them, or the decisions I make, then I'm sorry, but welcome fan fiction, so there you go. Alternatively if you** _ **do**_ **like it, then thank you, and I hope you stick with the story. Also, I hope the description isn't misleading, because I'm really worried it is, so yeah.**


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